Monday, July 22, 2019

Pulp self-awareness, 1947

"He found Larsen reading by a gasoline light in a cell that had been an oat bin. Heat from the hot mantle had beaded the teamster's brow with sweat and the light gleamed brightly on his bald head. On the cover of his magazine a fearful blonde clutched her breasts and shrank from a black shadow that was about to clutch her.

"'Did it get her?' Barton asked, tapping the blonde in the stomach with his pipe and grinning.

"'Naw!' Larsen said in disgust. 'Them pictures on the front never have nothing to do with the yarns inside.'"

-- Steve Frazer, from "Shotguns at Shavano," his Adventure debut, July 1947.